Covenkeepers

by Denise Gwen

  That’s why Maddie’s family had left in such a hurry; her father, in attempting to block the forced betrothal between Drakkur and Maddie, earned Ezekiel’s undying wrath. Not only that, but he and Claudia refused to accede to his demands that Claudia become Ezekiel’s next mistress, after Cassandra died under mysterious circumstances—some whispered she’d been poisoned—leaving behind a vacancy.

  Maddie shuddered at the memory. A terrible night, the night her family fled the castle after Papa got thrown into the carbonite freeze.

  There’d been another reason for the hasty departure, another reason entirely. As Maddie’s thoughts broached on that other reason, she shook her head with irritation. She really didn’t want to consider it.

  Her attention drifted over to the elusive Esmeralda, as she hovered in the corner. With her face cast in shadow, it was impossible to discern how she reacted to the scene before her. Surely, Ezekiel had forced her to come, for Esmeralda would not journey to the castle of her own volition. And where was Hector, the rightful heir to his father’s legacy?

  “Uh-oh,” Malamar murmured.

  “What is it?” Maddie said, her attention still focused on Esmeralda’s regal face. Esmeralda might be an old queen, her face lined with wrinkles, and her body bent, but she was still a stunning woman. She possessed an innate power—her aquiline nose, her regal bearing, a quality that simply defied the years. Ezekiel had been a fool to throw his devoted wife aside.

  “I think we’ve got a problem,” Malamar said.

  “What is it, Malamar?” she asked, finally tearing her gaze away from Esmeralda. When she saw what Malamar was gazing at, she squeaked in dismay. Nana scurried into the throne room and huddled up against a wall. Although she blended in easily with the gray stone walls, her appearance was only too apparent. “Oh, no. What’s Nana doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Malamar said, “but I do know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I know it isn’t good.”

  13

  “What in the world is your grandmother doing?” Malamar asked, aghast.

  From her vantage point higher up on the railing, Maddie enjoyed a better perspective, but even she couldn’t believe what she saw. As the vampires surged forward to place their hands upon Drakkur’s head for the moment of consecration, Maddie saw Nana leaning up against the wall.

  Why don’t they see her? Did she put on an invisibility incantation?

  Maddie wondered at that; perhaps Nana did. But if that were the case, then why could Maddie see her? Something was wrong. This didn’t make any sense.

  A feeling of dread lodged in the pit of Maddie’s tiny stomach.

  A servant scurried forward and placed a crown into Ezekiel’s hands. With a reverent gesture, Ezekiel set the crown down onto Drakkur’s head and then placed the palm of his left hand onto the crown. Ezekiel bent his head. “By the power invested in me, by the triumvirate of Satan, Dracula, and the eternal spirit, I hereby declare thee to be—”

  “Eternal doom and condemnation rain down upon you, Ezekiel!”

  Ezekiel paused, lifted his head. A look of anger flashed across his face. Without deigning to look behind him, he spoke in a low, dangerous voice, “You promised you would not interfere. You gave me your solemn vow you’d support me in this ceremony.”

  A deathly stillness filled the throne room. The bowing vampires lifted their heads in wonderment. A few bared their fangs as Esmeralda noiselessly glided forward, her arms crossed in front of her bosom, a look of fury dancing in her eyes. “Ezekiel, you are a liar!”

  Lifting his hand from his son’s head, Ezekiel turned to face his furious wife. “Take care what you say to me, Madame. You made certain promises to me.”

  “Yes,” she seethed, “that I did. To my eternal regret. But you did not yet fulfill your end of the bargain.”

  Ezekiel whirled around to face his wife. With his back turned to the audience of vampires, his bastard son, and the assembled, terrified witches, Maddie could not see the expression on his face. Judging from the tone in his voice, he sounded insanely angry. A wave of admiration washed over her, admiration for the majestic, imperious Esmeralda. Growing up in the castle—the same age as Esmeralda’s youngest son, Marcus, with whom she’d played witches and warlocks in the drainpipe leading from the castle—Maddie’d always given the imperious queen a wide berth, avoiding her at all costs, for Esmeralda was scary, grim and humorless—good qualities for a witch, but not someone you ran to for sympathy and comfort for a scraped knee.

  But now that she was older, Maddie realized that Esmeralda’s crafty qualities had stood the old witch in good stead—her husband might be more powerful, he might banish her to the remotest corner of Europe to live out her remaining days as a dowager empress, but she still possessed a power over Ezekiel.

  And then it hit her, the realization. Some part of this ceremony required Esmeralda’s participation; there could be no other earthly reason why Ezekiel had summoned his wife from exile. No doubt, Esmeralda knew the reason behind her return, and she was spitting mad about it. Maddie’s whiskers twitched with delight. Esmeralda was going to make Ezekiel pay dearly for her presence.

  I admire Esmeralda more than I can say.

  The back of his neck tightening with tension, Ezekiel hissed, “Madame, you gave me your troth you’d participate in good faith. And I executed my share of the promises that you extracted from me.”

  “So you say,” she shot back with an insolent sneer.

  “And may I add,” he said with venom, “you’ve been enormously selfish throughout this entire matter. But I did exactly as you demanded, and now I ask for your support in this ceremony.”

  Silence followed this comment.

  “Oh,” Esmeralda said, icily, “what, pray tell, my lord, have you done to fulfill your end of the bargain?”

  “Everything,” Ezekiel seethed.

  Maddie trembled at the coldness in his voice.

  Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!

  She was glad she couldn’t see his face; it was bad enough listening to the anger in his voice. How did Esmeralda bear it?

  “You fulfilled a few of your promises,” Esmeralda spat, her body shaking with a barely suppressed rage, “but you didn’t fulfill the one promise that I asked of you.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “The only promise that mattered.”

  Steel in Ezekiel’s voice. “You know I will never grant you that wish.”

  “Then, I shall not participate in this ridiculous charade. I shall not stand idly by and bear witness to the corruption of my coven with these—” And here she gestured at the hissing vampires. “—these bloodsuckers!”

  And with that, she whirled on her heel and stalked toward the door. Ezekiel coolly raised his wand and uttered an incantation. “Gastrointesteum!”

  A black flash of fire erupted from the tip of his wand and shot through Esmeralda’s body like lightning. She collapsed to the floor, howling in agony.

  With a cry of grief, the witches flew to Esmeralda’s aid, but Ezekiel pointed his wand at them in warning, his fingers trembling, as if he needed no excuse at all to enact the same revenge upon them. “Any one of you who steps forward shall surely perish!”

  The witches reared back, looks of fury in their eyes.

  Maddie felt sick. One of the unspoken yet sacrosanct rules: a witch or warlock never points a wand at another witch or warlock in anger or to effect harm. A whole separate section of the Wiccan Penal Code addressed such unforgivable sins. The punishment for intentionally wounding another witch, was any number of dreadful penalties—banishment to the bottom of the ocean, locked away in a moldy cell for half an eternity, or the more old-fashioned crowd-pleaser: dropped into a cauldron filled with burning oil. And that was just for hurting another witch. That didn’t include killing her.

  The first electric blast of pain coursed through Esmeralda’s body and she subsided a little. Moaning softly, and with foam burbling from her mouth, she rolled over o
nto her side. She looked pale as death, paler even than the palest vampire. She dropped her chin to the carpet and retched up phlegm and blood.

  The other witches, miserable and angry, stood helplessly by, but they did nothing to ease Esmeralda’s torment. If they so much as offered Esmeralda a scrap of assistance, they too would be obliterated. If Ezekiel could inflict such a terrible punishment on a formerly beloved wife, what in the world would he do to an ordinary witch?

  In a silken voice, Ezekiel purred, “Are you willing to cooperate now?” With an angry smile, he pointed the wand at his wife’s prostrate form and stepped forward. “Are you?”

  Dimly, out of the corner of her eye, Maddie noticed something moving. She gasped.

  Nana!

  “Oh, no!” she cried.

  Streaking like lightning, Nana shot across the throne room and pointed her wand at the first vampire she reached. He whirled around in surprise.

  “Exporeateum!” she cried.

  He screamed and burst into a million little pieces of dust and smoke. The other vampires turned around and cried out in rage.

  Nana pointed her wand at the next vampire. “Exporeateum!” The second vampire eviscerated instantly into bits of ember and dust. The remaining vampires jumped back out of reach, hissing malevolently at her.

  “Why doesn’t Nana use the plural form?” Maddie asked.

  “Don’t know,” Malamar replied. “Personally, I’d prefer it if she just got rid of the entire troop in one fell swoop.”

  The vampires screamed.

  Distracted by the cacophony of noise, Ezekiel whirled around, still clutching his wand. “What now?”

  Nana faked out the third vampire, pretending she was about to disintegrate him, then surprised them all by making a run for Drakkur. She jumped onto his back and uttered the incantation, “Vaporoteum!”

  A cloud of blue smoke erupted from Drakkur’s feet. With Nana clinging onto his back as if playing a bizarre game of leapfrog, he tore around the hall, screaming in agony as blue flames licked at his feet.

  The surviving vampires—and why didn’t Nana utter the plural form, Maddie wondered yet again—shuddered and drew close to one another, uncertain as to what to do next.

  Drakkur screamed with terror. The blue flames licked at him, creeping up his legs, as Nana clung to him, cackling manically.

  Ezekiel stared in horror as bits and pieces of Drakkur’s feet sloughed off into a bloody, crumbly dust. “Stop it!” he screamed at Nana.

  “Make me!” Nana shot back.

  Maddie inhaled. Nana was simply amazing. She’d placed herself at terrible risk—Ezekiel could kill her with a flick of his wand—but because Nana had joined with Drakkur at the moment she shouted her curse, anything that Ezekiel did to her would also befall Drakkur.

  If he killed Nana, he’d be killing his son as well.

  What a night.

  First, Esmeralda talked back to her husband, now Nana’s nifty trick with Drakkur. Maddie was simply awestruck by the amazing cunning and skill of these masterful, post-menopausal witches.

  And Ezekiel looked as if he wouldn’t mind shredding every single witch in the castle to shreds.

  But then something strange happened. His features cleared and a sudden, crafty look passed across his face. He closed his eyes and lifted his head, sniffing the air. “Ah,” he said at last. “I see.”

  “Uh-oh,” Maddie whispered. At the moment Ezekiel’s lips pulled back into that terrible smile, she felt it, a tremor from deep inside her belly. It meant only one thing: Nana had miscalculated.

  “Release my son now, you hag,” he said in a curiously neutral voice, “or I shall annihilate your granddaughter.”

  “My—what?” Nana said as Drakkur screamed in agony. He hobbled across the floor on the bloody stumps of his legs.

  “This one.” Ezekiel raised his wand to the balcony and uttered the incantation, “Levitation!”

  “Oh no!” Maddie cried.

  “Maddie, stop!” Malamar shouted, but it was too late.

  A silvery-thin thread of blue ink floated across the cavernous hall, wrapped itself around Maddie’s tiny body, and lifted her off the railing, transporting her on a current of air into the center of the throne room, where she dangled, suspended in the air above the assembled company.

  “Release my son now,” Ezekiel said in a toneless voice, “or else I shall fling this little one against a stone wall and bash her brains out.”

  Nana looked up at Maddie with an agonized face. “Oh, my Goddess.”

  Dear me. This is bad. This is very bad.

  ****

  Well, at least now I can’t complain about not being able to see.

  As she hovered in the air high above the throne room filled with vampires and witches, Maddie enjoyed an unparalleled view of the carnage below her.

  She squeaked in protest.

  Realizing instantly that her granddaughter’s life hung in the balance, Nana hopped off Drakkur’s back, but it was too late; she’d already damaged him beyond repair. His legs, reduced to bloody stumps, squirted out flesh and bits of gore. Drakkur took one last faltering stumble, then toppled over onto his face, screaming in pain. Ezekiel spared his son an agonized look, then gazed back up at Maddie. “Ah, my little mouse,” he crooned. “I knew you’d find your way back here.”

  “Let my family go!” Maddie squeaked. “And my friend! I want my friend back, too!”

  “I am afraid, my dear,” Ezekiel said, “that I cannot oblige you. Your dear little friend is tonight’s sacrifice.”

  “Oh, no. Please, no, no, no!”

  Nana fell to her knees before the imperious warlock. “Please, Ezekiel. Please, spare her—”

  “You’re too late.” He dropped his wand and Maddie plummeted fifty feet to the floor below.

  Nana screamed.

  As she fell, Maddie became aware of how eerily fast everything around her moved. She heard Nana’s shrill screams, the gasps of the assembled witches, and an inhalation of air of another person—who could it be, possibly Esmeralda?—as her tiny body flew to the ground. She outstretched her bitty claws and braced herself for the impact. As her body thudded onto the red carpet, an electric jolt shuddered through her; her soft bones reverberated inside her skin, her fur, her whiskers. Everything went black for one dark moment, then, as she looked up, she saw stars circling above her head.

  “Maddie!” Nana cried.

  Ezekiel pointed his wand at Nana and shouted, “Exporeactecus.”

  A lightning bolt shot from Ezekiel’s wand, crackling with a terrible strength as it ripped through Nana’s body and catapulted her into the stone wall opposite. Nana flew with the weightless energy of a rag doll. She cried out in agony as her frail bones crashed against the sharp stones; her head cracked, and as she slid to the stone floor, her body broken, a smear of blood streaked down the wall.

  “Nana!” Maddie cried weakly, but she felt so faint she could barely move. Her spindly legs collapsed out from under her. Thank Goddess she’d taken the fall as a mouse. If she’d been in her human form, she surely would’ve died when she struck the floor. And then it hit her: Ezekiel had known the fall wouldn’t kill her. He still wanted her to marry his son.

  With an unnerving cool, Ezekiel stepped over his son’s body, sprawled across the red carpet. If Drakkur wasn’t dead, then he would be very soon, but Ezekiel did not appear overly concerned at the moment over his son’s condition. Instead, he bent down and neatly scooped up Maddie into the palm of his hand. He gazed at her for a long moment, then slipped her into his front vest pocket. She lay back, weak and faint, then revived a little as she struggled to find a purchase on the cotton fabric. Working stealthily, she clawed up the inside of the pocket until her nose peeked out over the pocket’s edge. Now at least she could see all that went on before her.

  “Come here,” Ezekiel barked to a vampire servant, who scurried forward and bowed low before him. Ezekiel pointed his wand at the vampire’s legs and hissed, “Autopsi
cateum.”

  The vampire gazed quizzically at Ezekiel for a moment, before collapsing onto the red carpet, screaming in pain and clutching his legs. Smoke erupted from his knees as his legs were forcibly wrenched from his body. It looked as if an invisible giant were tearing the vampire servant’s legs off his body. The other vampires watched in horror as the vampire servant’s legs marched over to Drakkur’s body and then proceeded to attach themselves to his bloody stumps. As Drakkur’s body re-absorbed the servant vampire’s legs, he stopped screaming and watched in wonder as his body worked to assimilate the legs as his own. He rolled over onto his side, then sat up, gazing with stupefaction at his newly formed legs. At last he stood up, proud, erect. He smiled. He’d been completely restored.

  Not so for the poor vampire who’d sacrificed his own legs for the greater cause. For the first time in her life, Maddie actually felt sorry for a vampire.

  And here I thought the day would never come where I’d feel anything but disgust for a vampire.

  The servant vampire curled up, gazing in horror at the dusky stumps where his own legs had been just moments before. Then the vampire withered to pieces. As he writhed in agony, his body dissipated and fell apart, first into bits, then into larger fragments. As Maddie gazed in horror, maggots emerged from the crumbly bits of raw stump as the vampire rolled around blindly on the red carpet, before his stumps turned to dust. The dust spread up his legs, covered his belly, roiled up through his torso, neck and head, before finally transforming him into a disintegrating mass of dead tissue, rotted flesh, and filth.

  “Put him out of his misery,” Ezekiel said with a negligent sweep of his hand.

  “Gladly,” Drakkur replied. He pointed his wand at the servant vampire and uttered the Exporeateum curse. The vampire burst into bits of dust and decay. With a final, shimmering cry, the vampire dissipated into a wave of dark cloud. It rose up like a malignant storm, then washed away into dust.